Do you remember summer camp? The lessons, the memories, the stories?

As school let out for the summer, thousands of students hope to find space in summer camps and for many families, the summer can be a hectic and frantic struggle to find space and funds for the children.

For many of the basketball teams and tournaments setup throughout the city over the summer, these opportunities are funded out of the pockets of coaches working and hustling to secure entrance fees, referee costs and jersey purchases.

This fund provides the community opportunity to help support these beautiful efforts to provide character forming and memory making experiences for youth of color from public housing in North Brooklyn

Trellis is partnering with Eric Moody and Team Ballers Union to help provide funds for the teams throughout the summer

All funds raised will go directly to the team

Select the Leadership Development fund when you set up your giving

Team Ballers Union is comprised of boisterous, animated young boys who are full of personality and aim to have a great time. Although they mostly reside in lower income communities with limited resources, they have a positive outlook on life and are very resilient. With the guidance of their coach, Eric Moody, he ensures they value community and teamwork with the goal of developing into young men giving back to their community. They have competed in numerous tournaments and won several championships.

Eric also benevolently known as “Coach E” was honored as a Gowanus Community Hero in 2016 for his selfless work and mentorship to empower his team (over 50 players) throughout the years. This year the opportunity was presented to him to be apart of the Jr. NBA. This would expand the players’ horizons by competing with the best in the nation while also being exposed to different lifestyles and boost their self-esteem. There would be no doubt that they would be unstoppable and soar in their future endeavors in life.

It may be best to think of reparations as a secular tithe, a proportion of money and other resource set aside for causes that are worthy of support... There are thousands upon thousands of black [and brown] kids whose parents cannot afford to send them to summer camp or pay fees for a sports team...Be creative in transferring a bit of your resources, even if in modest amounts, to deserving and often struggling descendants of the folk who gave this country its great wealth and whose offspring rescued its reputation for democracy